1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a display controller, a display control method, a mobile terminal, and a display control program that are well suited for use with terminals, such as mobile phones, PHS (personal handyphone system) phones, PDAs (personal digital assistant), and notebook or desktop personal computers. More specifically, the invention relates to a display controller, a display control method, a mobile terminal, and a display control program easily enabling browsing (including verification (reading)) of a large amount of data stored in a storage medium.
2. Description of the Related Art
In today's pervasive mobile phones, many functions, such as a telephone function, a mobile mail function, a web browsing function, a camera function, a music player function, and a television broadcast receiving function. In addition, with such increased functions, memory with a large storage capacity is required, and hence an internal memory with a large storage capacity is provided. Further, a mass storage memory (external memory) attachable and detachable to and from the apparatus body is attachable, whereby the mobile phone has as a whole a large storage capacity as the sum of the respective storage capacities of the internal memory and the external memory.
As a result, a large amount of data can be stored in the mobile phone (the internal memory and the external memory), and a user stores data of, for example, a telephone directory, a schedule book; still images and motion images captured by using the camera function; and music data to be played back by using the music player function.
Before being played back, respective data are list displayed; and in the case of still images, either only a plurality of thumbnail images or the plurality of thumbnail images with their captured dates are parallel arranged and displayed. In addition, in the case of motion images, icons of motion images indicating that data stored in the memory are represent motion images and their captured dates are parallel arranged and displayed. For music data, melody titles of the respective music data, album titles therefor, and so forth are parallel arranged and displayed.
For displaying a desired still image, a user recognizes the desired still image in accordance with a corresponding thumbnail image, captured date, and the like, and specifies displaying of that still image. Thereby, the still image specified by the user is largely displayed on a display portion of the mobile phone. For playing back a desired motion image, the user of a desired still image, a user recognizes the desired still image in accordance with a corresponding thumbnail image, captured date, and the like, and specifies playback of that still image. Thereby, the motion image specified by the user is displayed in the form of a large screen on the display portion of the mobile phone. For playing back desired music data, the user recognizes the desired music data in accordance with a corresponding melody title, album title, and the like, and specifies playback of the music data. Thereby, a playback output of the music data specified by the user is obtained through, for example, a speaker unit or an earphone unit connected to an earphone terminal thereof.
Also known are mobile phones of the type that allows addition of meta-information to respective pieces of data, thereby to enable quick searching for desired data from among a large amount of data. When using a mobile phone of this type, a user operates the phone to display an edit screen of the property of desired data, and inputs a desired title and the like thereon. For instance, in the case of the data representing a still image of an athletic meeting, user inputs a title, such as “athletic meeting.” Thereby, the contents of the data can be generously recognized in accordance with the input title, and retrieval of desired data can be facilitated.
In addition, in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2004-297649 (pp. 7 to 10; FIGS. 6, 8, and 10), a video signal recording and/or playback apparatus is disclosed that facilitates retrieval of desired data from among a large amount of data stored in memory. According to the video signal recording and/or playback apparatus, when recording video signals a hard disk drive (HDD), video signals captured by, for example, a camera recorder apparatus, and a digital camera apparatus, are categorized into video signals of a category A, and are recorded into the HDD. On the other hand, video signals of television broadcasts are categorized into video signals of a category B, and are recorded into the HDD.
In the case that, of video signals recorded in the hard disk drive, video signals of the category B (=television broadcast video signals) are presented to a user, a microprocessor forms and list-displays thumbnail images of the respective television broadcast video signals. Thereby, the user can retrieve a desired image from among images of recorded television broadcasts in accordance with the thumbnail image.
In the case that, of video signal recorded into the hard disk device, video signals of the category A (video signals captured by the camera recorder apparatus or digital camera apparatus) are presented to the user, the microprocessor displays on the display a calendar image of a month specified by the user. In addition, the microprocessor designates captured dates of the respective video signals in accordance with date information added to respective video signals recorded in the hard disk drive.
Subsequently, icons of the camera recorder apparatus representing respective video signals captured by the camera recorder apparatus and/or icons of the digital camera apparatus representing respective video signals captured by the digital camera apparatus are formed. Then, the icons of the camera recorder apparatus and/or the digital camera apparatus are displayed on display areas corresponding to the captured dates of the respective video signals on the calendar image.
In accordance with these icons displayed on the calendar image, it can be recognized that the video signals captured by the camera recorder apparatus and/or the digital camera apparatus on the corresponding dates are stored in the HDD.
Subsequently, in accordance with the calendar image, the user can recognize existence of some images captured with the dates displayed with the icons; however, the user cannot recognize the contents of the images. As such, when wanting to know the contents of the images, the user specifies a desired date from among the dates displayed with the icons. In response to the specification, the microprocessor forms thumbnail images of typical ones of images captured on the date by the camera recorder apparatus and/or the digital camera apparatus, and displays the thumbnail images) in place of the calendar image on the display. Thereby, the user can recognize the contents of the images captured with the specified date.
In addition, the microprocessor displays on the display, together with the thumbnail images, a previous-date button and a subsequent-date button. The previous-date button is operated to specify displaying of an image captured on the date previous to a date of the image currently being displayed. The subsequent-date button is operated to specify displaying of the image captured on the date subsequent to the date of the image currently being displayed. Upon detection of an operation of the previous-date button, the microprocessor sequentially displays on the display an image captured with a date previous to the date of an image currently being displayed, in units of the detection of the operation. On the other hand, upon detection of an operation of the subsequent-date button, the microprocessor sequentially displays, on the display in units of the detection of the operation, an image captured with the date subsequent to the date of an image currently being displayed.
As described above, according to the video signal recording and/or playback apparatus disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2004-297649, video signals to be stored into the HDD by being categorized into video signals captured by the camera recorder apparatus and video signals captured by the digital camera apparatus (category A) and video signals of television broadcasts (category B). In addition, for the video signals of television broadcasts, thumbnail images of the respective video signals are list-displayed, thereby enabling easy retrieval of a desired video signal from among a large number of video signals of television broadcasts.
In addition, for video signals captured by the camera recorder apparatus or video signals captured by the digital camera apparatus, the icons of the apparatuses used to capture the images are displayed on display areas corresponding to dates on the calendar image in accordance with date information added to the respective video signals. Thereby, the existence of video signals that correspond to the dates and that are captured by the camera recorder apparatus and/or the digital camera apparatus is indicated. In this manner, of a large number of images that are captured by the camera recorder apparatus or the digital camera apparatus and that are stored in the HDD, a desired image can be generously retrieved in accordance with the dates displayed with the icons on the calendar image.
Further, in the event that, of dates on the calendar image, a date displayed with the icon is specified, thumbnail images captured with the date are formed and displayed. In addition, an image captured previous to the specified date or an image captured with a date after the specified data is sequentially displayed in units of a user specification. Thereby, the contents of images captured with respective dates can be verified, and a desired image can easily be retrieved from among a large number of recorded images captured by the camera recorder apparatus and the digital camera apparatus.
As described above, according to the conventional mobile phone, with the increase in the amount of data to be stored therein, such as still images, motion images, and music data in proportion to the increase of the memory storage capacity, thumbnail images, captured dates, and/or melody titles are simply arranged in parallel and displayed. As such, a problem exists in that it is difficult to perform high speed browsing of a large amount of data (or, to carry out high speed verification).
With desired meta-information added to respective pieces of the data and storing the data, high speed browsing of the data can be performed to a certain extent in accordance with the meta-information. However, the meta-information has to be input corresponding to each piece of data, such that a problem still exists in that the input operation is very complicate and burdensome.
According to the video signal recording and/or playback apparatus disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2004-297649, when browsing images of a television broadcast (images of the category B), thumbnail images of respective images are parallel arranged and displayed. As such, a problem arises in that it is difficult to perform high speed browsing (or, high speed verification) of a large number of images.
Further, according to the video signal recording and/or playback apparatus, when browsing images captured by the camera recorder apparatus or the digital camera apparatus (i.e., images of the category A), only the icon is displayed on the calendar. As such, what is initially recognizable from the icon is only the presence or absence of an image captured on the corresponding date. There arises a problem that the user has to trace his/her memory in accordance with the date, consequently only allowing unclear recognition of the contents. A further problem arises in that each thumbnail image has to be displayed by specifying the date in order to verify the image contents, and the contents have to be verified in that manner. Thus, problems still exist in that it is difficult to accomplish high speed browsing of a large number of images.